


Like the Net Under the Ledge

by nahemaraxe (zephyrina)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Christmas OTP Challenge, Fallen Gabriel, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:27:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2707382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zephyrina/pseuds/nahemaraxe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you celebrate Christmas during a zombie apocalypse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Getting out the decorations

The friendly town of Bloomingdale has a rather unfriendly policy toward strangers. No, scratch that. These days, every stupid town in this stupid country does, but Bloomingdale? It takes the cake. Well, this week’s cake. The list of places Gabriel’s holding a grudge against gets updated quite often. Still, if only he could, he’d smite the assholes who gagged him and left him tied to a diner door into ob—

Near the counter, where the moonlight doesn’t reach, something falls down.

By now, Gabriel has learned that the sick feeling he gets in his stomach is fear. He hates it, hates how he can’t control the spiking in his pulse or the quickening in his breath, or the flashback of that walker tearing into him. _Fucking emotions_ , he thinks as he turns to his right. His eyes must be wide, panicked, and he twists his wrists, trying to force the duct tape to give. Just a little.

_Please._

He catches a movement in the shadows. Glass breaks under the weight of something heavy, and Gabriel pulls again, his hurt hand be damned. It occurs to him that he’s gonna kick it right there, sitting in the dark among overturned trash cans and broken bottles. He’s gonna kick it in silence, and that’s terrifying.

_Dad, please._

A growl fills the place.

His heart beats faster and faster, and Gabriel pushes with his heels until he has his back pressed against the door. The angel side of him is shouting orders, wanting him to fight, but his lizard ( _human_ ) brain is in charge now, and it doesn’t give two fucks about who he used to be. In Heaven, Gabriel might have been the General of all garrisons; right now, he’s just a deer caught in the headlights. All he can do is make himself a smaller target and watch the walker dragging itself on the floor.

It’s not the same one that got him almost a month ago, and yet it is. From the black cavity of its mouth to the nails scraping on tiles, torn up and crusted with blood, Gabriel can’t tell the difference, not when it keeps advancing like that. It moves at a slow pace, letting him pick up details as it enters the part of the diner lit up by the moon. Hair, plastered to the skull and face; one missing eye, the other vacant and fixed on him; the wrong angle of the neck, where something white gleams through the skin and something else seems stuck to it, small and also white, like grains of rice; teeth. They’re broken, jutting toward him. Watching them makes the scar on his leg throb.

Is it phantom pain? Anticipation pain?

Before he can decide on an answer, a shot hits the walker in the head and slams it against the counter; then, someone jumps inside.

It’s Sam. It’s Sam, carrying a rifle and that hugeass knife of his strapped to his thigh, Sam who sweeps the diner with a flashlight before rushing to where Gabriel is tied. It’s Sam, he thinks as he lets his head fall back against the door frame; it’s the idiotic, blessed moose who’s come to save the day.

“Are you okay?” Sam asks. He peels the duct tape off Gabriel’s mouth, grimaces. “You stupid ass, you scared me, _are you okay_?”

“Yeah, just—” ( _having a flashback or two, no biggie_ ) “—roughed up. Mostly bruises though, and nobody chewed into me this time. Uh. Win?”

“Gabe—”

“It’s gonna be fine, bucko, I promise, but only if you speed things up a notch. Still tied, remember?” Gabriel shakes his wrists for emphasis, and his breathing comes a bit easier when he sees Sam’s shoulders drop. “By the way, nice concerned puppy impression there.”

“Moron.” The familiar mix of exasperation and fondness is resurfacing in Sam’s voice. That’s good. “Hold still.”

Gabriel has to twist his neck at an odd angle to see Sam cutting through the duct tape. As soon as the last layer is gone, blood rushes back into his hands, and with it comes along pain. “Jesus fuck,” he hisses, but he backpedals a moment later. “It’s just a bone wound, okay? Keep the DEFCON at level four.”

“I don’t know why I was worried, really,” Sam says.

They’re both on their feet now, watching the intersection that faces the diner. They’ve got company already. From where he stands, Gabriel can count seven walkers shambling across the street, yards, and sidewalks. More will come, he knows that. Even if Bloomingdale was a tiny town in life, it still has its fair share of undead.

“We’ve gotta beat it,” he says.

“Yeah. The car’s parked two blocks from here, if we slip out from the back and cut through yards, we can make it. You—” Sam’s voice wavers. “You all right?”

“Peachy,” Gabriel answers. He’s aware of the square set of his jaw and that his good hand is curled into a fist, even if he can’t pinpoint the reason behind it, exactly. He can’t tell if he’s angry at Sam for the hovering act or on Sam’s behalf; he got bitten and that had sucked balls, but Sam had been the one who had to keep him at gunpoint all day, not knowing if the mojo Gabriel had left would have been enough to pull him through.

It takes him a considerable effort to relax, to flash Sam a grin and say, “Come on. You man the weapons, I’ll watch your back. Literally,” but he does it anyway. Playing smartass keeps Sam off his case. Focused. Nothing of this is Sam’s fault.

+

It’s a close call, but they make it. By the time they reach the car and Gabriel yanks the passenger door open with the wrong hand (stupid, stupid dominant side thingy), Sam has taken down a dozen walkers and almost got taken down himself. He’s still in one piece only because Gabriel slammed a pipe in a walker’s face, giving him a second or two to turn around and shoot.

Now, while Sam speeds along county roads, brain matter is drying on Gabriel’s jacket, his hoodie. The scar on his thigh pulses again, and it feels like the gore is burning its way through his clothes; it’s all in his mind, yet he wishes for a shower, for scalding water and the chance to scrub his ( _body_ ) vessel ( _raw_ ) clean.

Gabriel sits ramrod straight, keeping his hurt hand in his lap and his eyes closed. When Sam asks if he feels like stopping someplace to rest (‘it’s almost dawn, we’ve been up too long already’), he says yes.

+

It’s a lighthouse. It’s a lighthouse and Sam is a damn genius.

“I could blow you right now, Sammykins,” Gabriel says as he pads through the keeper’s quarters. It’s nothing fancy, just a room with a couple beds, a kitchenette, and a door that leads to a tiny bathroom, but holy fucking shit, it’s awesome. The whole place is, from top to bottom.

For starters, it’s safe. Being at the end of a pier, it doesn’t attract as many walkers as regular buildings do. They could easily defend it from the gallery - the lantern room? Perfect to keep watch - and the staircase is an added bonus. There’s no way a walker could summon enough coordination to climb four stories, not on spiral-ly metal steps. Sam’s gonna be able to sleep

(and maybe, just maybe, he’ll manage a few hours too)

Then, the sucker has a water tank. A beautiful, honest-to-Dad twenty gallons water tank. And it’s full. It’s the best thing that happened to him since (turning into a walker chew toy)— _since_ , and all he wants is to dump it over his head.

“Hey, did you see this shit? We can _shower_.”

“More like we can have a washcloth bath,” Sam says. He’s on the floor, rummaging in his duffel and frowning. “Then I’ll fix your hand, and then you can blow me. If you don’t crash first, that’s it.”

The affection in Sam’s voice hurts and soothes at the same time, and Gabriel doesn’t know what to make of it. It must be one of those weird human quirks again, mixed feelings or stuff like that. Lately, he’s been wondering more and more how the hell people cope with emotive clusterfucks. How he’s supposed to cope. “What’cha looking for, kiddo? The holy grail?” he asks, mostly to distract himself.

“First aid kit.”

“In my bag.”

“Oh.”

Gabriel smiles a little before edging toward one of the beds. The comforter looks thin, but it’s the farthest from the window; maybe he can convince Sam to push the other against it, so that they’ll both have a solid wall behind their backs.

 _You’re ridiculous_ , he thinks. _And crazy_.

He takes a couple more steps. Above the bed, there’s a calendar with the days crossed out; the last X, drawn with a sharpie, marks the tenth of September.

“Walkers were out and about in September, right?” he asks, flipping pages back and forth. From July on, every day has its own X. “They started showing up around, when, June?”

“Uh-uh.”

“Then people have holed up in here before us. Confirms my theory of this being an awesome hideout. Wait, lemme check something.”

“While you do, can I see your hand?”

Gabriel turns around. Sam’s standing close to his side, looking both tired as fuck and eager to help, to fix what he can. Powers or not, Gabriel is able to read him with no effort. It’s scary.

“Go ahead,” he says, shrugging. “Didn’t you say ‘bath first’ though?”

“I just want to see what’s wrong with it, is all.”

“Let me help you out, then: an asshole stepped on it and broke whatever. You set it, I curse at you throughout the process, and in a month or so I’m as good as new. Gabriel three-point-one version, ready for action.”

That earns him a snort, but Sam doesn’t look up. He’s picked up his hand, and now he’s turning and poking at it. He’s being really gentle, pulling back when Gabriel winces and waiting a moment before resuming his whatever-he’s-doing. “You were saying something,” he reminds him. “The calendar?”

“Oh. Right!” Gabriel reaches out and turns a page, ending on October. November. Then he goes back a couple of times. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“Merry Christmas, Sasquatch.‘Tis the season, jingle bells, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, fa-la-la.”

Sam lets go of his hand (blessed, blessed relief) and stares at him with wide eyes. “You’re kidding? Is it Christmas?”

“No, well, it’s the first of December. Still.” Gabriel makes an handwaving motion. “After Halloween, it’s practically Christmas. We should, uh, pull out the decorations, get them up. Isn’t what you guys do on the first day anyway?”

“Yes, but—” Sam cuts himself off. “Are you for real?” he asks, and the tiny smile playing on his face is enough to make Gabriel nod.

“‘Course I am.”

Sam’s smile grows wider. He’s conveying ‘you’re an idiot’ and ‘this is the best idea ever’ with it, something he used to do often. Before. In a past life. “I don’t think we’d find any decoration in here. But maybe we can go for unconventional.”

Gabriel watches him kneel on the floor and pull out the ladder they shoved under a bed upon their arrival. Realization dawns on him when he sees Sam dragging it against the window and then opening it. “That the tree?”

“Yeah. Get this, I saw ladders decorated as Christmas trees in a DIY store once, and they looked cool, so… uh, I mean, I don’t know what we could hang on it, but we could still come up with something? If we want? Since we need some time to rest and all.”

What Sam is saying is that with Gabriel’s right hand out of commission, they have little choice but holing up there until it’s healed. It should tick him off - it does - but it also makes him feel grateful. A little bit like he’s cared for, maybe. Gabriel shifts closer to Sam and bumps his shoulder against Sam’s arm.

“It’s gonna be fun, Sammo.”

“Yes. Yes, it will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zombies don’t mix well with Christmas, I know. Still. Title taken from ‘Something I need’ by One Republic. A big thank you to Greymichaela for her beta job and her help with the summary <3
> 
> Fill for my 'loss of job/income' prompt (hurt_comfort bingo) + day #1 of the Christmas OTP challenge.


	2. Christmas Cards

It’s a dream. It can’t be anything else. Whether asleep or awake, Gabriel remembers what happened that day down the the last detail, and he knows things didn’t go like that.

Still, knowing ( _that his subconscious is playing a trick on him, ha-fucking-ha_ ) is of no help. He’s backed against a corner, his thigh hurting like hell, his palm slick with blood. The pressure he’s putting on the wound is not enough; blood drips through his fingers, soaking the fabric of his jeans and running past his knee, his calf. If he looked down, he’d see it spattered on the floor, too.

“Sam, please,” he hears himself say. His voice sounds distant even to his own ears. “I can fix it, you know I can. Let me try, I’ll—”

“You don’t have enough juice left,” Dream Sam says. He’s holding him at gunpoint, just like Real Sam did. Unlike Real Sam though, Dream Sam’s gun is loaded, and he keeps a finger on the trigger. Dream Sam is ready to plant a bullet in his head and walk away.

“Let’s get this over with, okay? It’s an act of mercy, Gabe. I’m doing you a favor. Or—” Dream Sam grins at him. He places the barrel on Gabriel’s forehead and fucking grins, as if he finds all this amusing. “—or you can think of it as a lesson. The weakest member of the pack gets put down. I’m really sorry.”

“Sam,  _no_.”

Gabriel raises his hand and tries to grab the gun, to push it away before Dream Sam could shoot him. This is the kind of ( _nightmare_ ) where others move at regular speed and he doesn’t, though; his arm feels like it’s stuck in molasses, so much that he’s able to see drops of blood as they drip from his fingers. In the dim light of the store, they’re black and tear-shaped and perfect, suspended in midair, and he knows he can’t do anything to stop Sam. He can only watch and wait and—

“Gabriel! Wake up!”

Sam. Gabriel opens his eyes; there are hands on his shoulders and Sam’s mouth is moving, but Gabriel can’t hear what he’s saying, not while the ( _gunbloodbite_ ) dream still has him in its clutches. He inhales, then he reaches out and shoves.

It’s just when he sees Sam tumbling off the bed and pain lances through his right hand (it’s already raised to snap, he’s such a stupid asshole) that his brain catches up. This is… not the store. They’re at the lighthouse. He’s safe, he never turned, and Sam never shot him. A dream. That’s all it was. A fucking dream.

“Sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—” he shakes his head. “ _Sam_.”

“No, no, don’t apologize. I startled you, it’s my fault.” Sam sits back on his heels before offering him a small smile. “It’s okay if I touch you?”

“Yeah, sure.” Gabriel wants to add that he doesn’t have to ask, that Sam’s allowed to touch him whenever. Deep inside, though? He’s so damn relieved Sam asked. Images are fading fast now, but the phantom pressure of the gun has not. Not yet. “Nightmares suck balls.”

Sam hums in agreement. He’s moved from his spot on the floor only to put a hand on Gabriel’s knee, and the way he’s rubbing circles on it seems to have a calming effect. Little by little, the grip around his chest eases up, and Gabriel lies back on the bed.

“How long was I out?” he asks after a while.

“Almost the whole day.”

“Whoa.”

It doesn’t feel like it. Every joint in Gabriel’s body ache, his muscles are stiff and sore. Even his jaw hurts, as if he ground his teeth real good while he was asleep. “What about you, Sammo?”

“Was up around noon,” Sam says. “Are you hungry?”

“Nah. It’s—” Gabriel lets his voice trail off and props himself on his elbow. He didn’t notice before, but Sam has green ink smeared on his cheek. It’s kind of cute. “Hey, Crayola Kid, what did you do? Tell me I’ve got a Christmas card, Special Moose edition.”

“Not really, no.”

Sam shrugs and looks away, and that sobers Gabriel up at once. “What is it?” he asks. Not that he has to. He’s quite sure he knows where their conversation is going; they’ve had it enough times for him to recognize the signs. “Sam?”

“I’ve been making flyers.” Another shrug. “For, you know, Dean. And Cas.”

_Bingo._

Gabriel exhales. “You still think it’s a good idea to go to the wall.”

“Yeah. And you still think it’s not,” Sam says. There’s no hostility in his voice, only the stubborn resolve of someone whose mind is set. They keep arguing about that, about what Gabriel has once dubbed ‘ _an idiotic move at best, suicidal at worst_ _’_ , and Sam still wants to go.

“Jesus Christ, kid. You’re like a dog with a bone.”

“It’s my brother. And your brother.”

Gabriel waits for Sam to add something along the lines of ‘don’t you care about them?’. It doesn’t happen, though. Sam just reaches out and touches Gabriel on the arm. “I don’t wanna fight, okay?”

“Okay. Me neither.”

“That’s good.” Sam smiles a little. “You might be right, but I need to try anyway. I can’t give up. Not like this.”

“I know,” Gabriel says.

In the end, it all boils down to that. The wall may be a myth or a wishful thinking (and if it exists, it’s gonna be guarded like the motherfucking Area 51), but it’s the only hope Sam has left. He will go all the way down to Cali to check on it, and Gabriel will go with him. Damn.

“C’mere now.‘M cold.”

Sam obliges, waiting for him to scoot aside before crawling in the space between Gabriel’s back and the wall. It’s not the most comfortable position for either of them - Gabriel’s balanced on the edge of the mattress, Sam’s squeezed against him - but whatever. He’s got Sam’s arm curled around his waist, so it’s gonna do. At least for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fill for the day #2 of the Christmas OTP challenge


	3. Snuggling in front of the fire with hot cocoa/tea + shopping for gifts

The tire tracks are still visible. They won’t be there much longer since the snow is already melting, but if he moves fast enough, he’ll be able to find Sam before the drizzle turns into rain.

Sam’s general whereabouts are not an issue. The note Gabriel found on the pillow mentioned wood for the stove and food, and that means he’s probably headed to town. Breaking into places is as routine as it gets these days. While many houses have been ransacked, some are still untouched, with stocked up pantries and clothes hanging in the closet. Finding one is just a matter of time.

What pisses Gabriel off is that Sam left him behind. Oh, he gets it - broken hand, PTSD-ridden ass, newly human, the whole spiel - but getting it doesn’t make him less angry. They’re not supposed to work like that. Ill-matched as they are, they’re a team; they should have each other’s back. The last thing Gabriel needs is a babysitter, and Sam’s not gonna have him around much further if he perceives him as a liability. After all, Gabriel’s survived without Sam for millenniums; if he has to, he’ll manage a few more ( _weeks_ ) months on his own.

Jaw set, he shifts his weight once, then he starts walking.

+

His marksmanship sucks. Plain and simple. He’s more or less decent with his right hand, but with his left he can’t hit the broad side of a barn. All he’s doing is shooting past walkers and cursing them, while they keep moving, undeterred and converging toward him like moths attracted to a flame. One slips on the soggy ground, another stumbles against its legs and ends up sprawled over it, but even like that they don’t give up. The third, whose face is half decomposed and missing several fingers, growls at him when a bullet flies above its head.

“Persistent little fuckers,” Gabriel hisses, firing one last time before giving up. More walkers are coming his way, and he’s just wasted a clip, no real damage done. He needs to go for plan B.

Running.

+

What’s left of the tire tracks makes a left turn, while Gabriel has to go right. There are too many walkers along the Main Street, he’d never make it if he went that way.

(Sam did, though. Sam did—)

That single, stray thought is enough to trigger the damn chest-squeezing feeling again. It wraps around his torso and presses down, almost to the point of crushing; he’s managed to keep panic in check so far, but the idea of Sam ( _bittendeadturned_ ) is tipping the scale. He still has the gun in his hand, and he clutches at it, driving the handle into his palm until his knuckles go white.

_Focus. Think._

Sam’s fine. He has to be. Gabriel’s going to lose the walkers first, then he’ll find the idiot and see that for himself.

His heart slams against his ribcage as he cuts through the front yard of a house. The door has been left open, probably by the people who raided it; if no one’s inside right now though (if he can find something to bar the door, if he’s not about to dive headfirst into a walkers feast, if), it could be a good place to hide.

Gabriel doesn’t stop running. He just steers toward the house while ejecting the empty magazine and pushing a new one in. He does so with his right hand, but he barely registers the pain.

+

As predicted, the house is a mess. Whoever ransacked it made a point of damaging the whole property, from the kitchen to the master bedroom upstairs. As he checks every room, he steps on glass, cutlery, a milk jug; books have been dumped into a puddle next to the closet, and the bathroom mirror is smeared with blood. In the living room, Gabriel sees blackened plaster above the couch, where something has been set on fire. He has an idea or two about the nature of that something, but it’s well past being a threat now. Still, the smell of burned flesh lingers in the air, and he has to cover his nose with his sleeve.

“Fuck you, Sam,” he says, picking up an overturned chair and sitting on it backward. He’s placed it as far as possible from the couch, yet angled toward the main entrance. “Fuck you and your notes and your  _please, don’t be mad_.”

Upon entering, he’s barred the door with a table. It’s a huge one, made of solid whatever-yet-expensive-looking wood. Gabriel doesn’t think that ‘makes a splendid barrier against the dead’ ever appeared in any furniture catalog, but fact is, this one does. For the time being, it’ll keep the walkers out.

(he’s aware he’s in a potential trap, that if they break inside and he’s not fast enough, his death won’t be pretty)

A shiver runs along his spine as he looks around. Double-checks. All the windows have wooden boards nailed on the frame, the ones on the first floor included. The garage is locked. The cellar is empty, and so is the attic and the broom closet. If (when) worse comes to worst, he can slip away from the high-fenced garden in the back.

It’s a good plan. He’s a decent runner and his sense of direction is okay. Rounding up to Main Street shouldn’t be an issue.

 _It won’t_ , he tells himself. As long as he remains focused and ignores the thumps and scratches against the front door, he’ll be fine.

Time stretches. Gabriel breathes in and out, keeping his eyes trained on a spot just above the table. There are glass decorations on the door, and sometimes he catches fingertips sliding on them. Mouths. Faces. When it happens - when his gaze flickers up without permission - he presses his thumb on the palm of his broken hand, hard. Dragging the table must have fucked it up again; the least he can do is use it to ground himself.

He’s already done it thrice when he hears the distant rumble of an engine. It’s approaching, he realizes, and he jumps to his feet, his head cocked to better listen to it. Soon enough the noise seems to fill the room, paired up with tires rolling on muddy ground.

_Sam._

“Get away from the door!” Sam shouts a moment later, and Gabriel reacts at once, stepping aside and crouching next to a window.

“All clear!” he shouts back.

Sam starts firing right away, shooting four times in a rapid succession.

“That’s it, you get out now.”

The ‘more are coming’ is implied. Guns and rifles are handy, but they attract too much attention. As he strides through the room and grabs the table by its leg (mother _fucker_ , that hurts), Gabriel wishes he still had his archangel blade. Even if his human body makes him less accurate and his ambidexterity is long gone, it was a weapon made for him. A silent one.

 _Gotta shop around for knives_ , he thinks and wrenches the door open. Dead walkers are slumped on the threshold, the pile high enough to reach his calves. To get out, Gabriel has to climb over them; it’s just a step, nothing more, but the heel of his boot sinks into a ribcage, and the squelching noise it makes while he pulls it out almost makes his stomach turn.

Luckily, the car is right there. He gets inside as Sam fires against approaching walkers, then he digs his fingers into his thigh. When he hears the car door slamming shut, he just says, “Drive.”

+

They don’t speak at all during the drive back to the lighthouse. When they’re inside, with the doors locked and two backpacks worth of supplies dropped on the beds, Sam sits on the desk and says, “Gabe.”

It’s just one word, and yet it’s one word too many. Gabriel moves at once, taking advantage of the reduced height difference to deck him square on the jaw. It’s not a hard punch, even more so because it’s delivered with the wrong hand, but it seems to catch Sam by surprise. Gabriel watches him go sprawling on the desk, hitting the surface with his elbow; before Sam could react in any way though, he reaches out and hauls him up by his shirt. Standing with a leg between Sam’s knees, he lets their foreheads almost touch.

“Pull another stupid stunt like this and you’re on your own, Winchester,” Gabriel says. He means it. It’d hurt like fuck but he means it, and judging from the look that crosses Sam’s face, the kid knows that too. Still, Sam holds Gabriel’s gaze.

“The ‘stupid stunt’ was to get us food, and painkillers, and something to burn in the stove. You wanna talk about stunts? Let’s start with yours, then.”

Gabriel bristles. “I went looking for you, dipshit. I was—”  _Terrified_  could be a good word.  _Scared shitless_ , too. “I was worried.”

“Just like I was when I heard the shots. Do you have an idea—” Sam's voice trails off, and he shrugs. When he speaks up again, he sounds a lot quieter than before. “This is the second time in three days that I’ve gotta sweep in and save your ass.”

“Which is another way to say that without powers, I’m just a good fuck?”

At that, Sam’s eyes go wide, and he says, “ _No_ ,” but Gabriel lets him go and takes a couple of steps backward.

“Nice to know.”

“I never meant it that way!”

"Whatever." Gabriel makes a flapping gesture with his good hand. “Drop it,” he adds. If only he had a wisp of Grace left, he’d snap himself away; he even searches for it, no matter if he’s already forgotten how to. Human brains are not made to grasp concepts like that, after all.

As he pads next to the window, he hears Sam moving around the room. Warmth starts to fill it soon after - kiddo must have tossed whichever scrap of wood he managed to find in the stove - and then Sam slips something in his hand. It’s a peace offering, coming in the form of a Gatorade bottle, bright blue and with the seal still intact.

“I couldn’t find anything else. I wanted tea or chocolate, but no dice.”

“All right,” Gabriel says, not looking at Sam. “All right.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hahaha, I’m so behind it’s ridiculous. Sorry? Also, cocoa becomes Gatorade, nobody snuggles anywhere, and ‘shopping for gift’ is apparently a codename for ‘scavenging supplies’.
> 
> Fill for my 'fight' square (hurt_comfort bingo) + day #3/#4 of the Christmas OTP challenge


End file.
